Alumni News

Jinan Banna is passionate about shifting the focus of our healthcare system to prevention rather than the treatment of health conditions. On this topic, she presented a poster at the Hawaiʻi Agriculture Conference, “Mapping community assets to establish a local coordinated system of care to prevent childhood obesity.”

To our great sadness, Dr. Arnold Hara passed away on October 20. Dr. Hara, born in 1950, attended Hilo High School and received a BS and MS in Entomology from the University of Hawaiʻi, and his PhD from the University of California at Davis under the direction of Dr. Harry Kaya.

The longfin yellowtails, or Almaco Jack, and locally known as kampachi, are among the most valuable finfish groups for offshore aquaculture development. Yet, they are notoriously difficult to rear and harvest on a large commercial scale. At the same time, despite the shrimp industry’s massive volume – and the U.S. being a leader in shrimp genetics research – programs on genetic improvement have given little attention to shrimp egg and larvae production.

How can CTAHR stoke interest in our students and other residents toward a career in Ag? One strategy is Hawaiʻi-One-Ag, a plan to better connect and articulate the many opportunities in agriculture and environmental management. Another is to improve GoFarm Hawaiʻi’s beginning farmer training by enhancing its curriculum and leadership training.

By the time it was discovered in Hawaiʻi in 2016, this invasive pest had already damaged 2,000 acres of rangeland. A scant eight generations later, the Twolined Spittlebug (TLSB) had expanded its range to more than 176,000 acres. In highly infested areas where nymph density exceeded 50/m², the result was nearly 100% die back of key range forages, including Kikuyu and pangola grasses – and their loss exposed the land to invasive plants like Pamakani, wild blackberry, and fireweed. Livestock producers faced devastating economic losses.